One of my faves; it does a surprisingly good job with such an awful concept to start from. Frank Langella is a pip as Skeletor, and everybody, even Lundgren (except the key line), rises above their usual level, and even though it never reaches the level of 'good' acting, again, surprisingly good for the roles and dialogue they are given. But the initial concept is just too horrible to overcome, and the budget seems weak--an awful lot of the 'action' is blowing up crap in a music store. David Odell wrote the, uh, screenplay; he also gave us "Supergirl," "The Dark Crystal," and at least one more movie I've forgotten, but they all had this in common: they were nice little fantasy ideas, laboring to stretch a half-hour of plot out to ninety minutes. Meg Foster turns Evil-Lyn into a fantasy of a different sort--grrrr!--but she wasn't Cagney or Lacey; they were Sharon Gless and Tyne Daly.

I should be more specific, Meg Foster only played Cagney in the very first (1982) season. I honestly never watched the show, except it must have been that season (My mother loved cop shows, I still get "Hill Street Blues" flashbacks now and then.) since I always could have sworn the girl shown as Cagney wasn't the one I remembered. Up until doing the review and checking the IMDB credits I thought I was losing my mind.

This was probably the first movie I saw in the theatres, and it was cool. To top that off, it had a great line of toys, including a cyber-lizard looking-thing that shot sparks out of its mouth!!! How can you go wrong? You can't.

I remember when the He-Man toys first came out, I loved them. I also remember imagining what a live-action He-Man movie would be like. Years later, we got this. I was still young enough to want to see it, and I liked it. However, I've seen it a couple times since and it really was bad. Despite near perfect casting, the movie went afoul when He-Man came to earth. It never happened in the show. If it had been more like THE DARK CRYSTAL and stayed on Eternia, instead of predicting the NINJA TURTLES movies, it'd be a classic. Well, maybe not. After all, what can you expect from a movie of a cartoon of a toy line that was originally intended as a CONAN toy line!

Hey, my name's Adam Tyner, and I created the second He-Man website ever, way back in 1995. Honestly, it's pathetic that filmmakers with millions upon millions of dollars at their disposal couldn't capture the spirit of a syndicated cartoon made on a shoestring budget. "Masters of the Universe" wasn't the greatest cartoon ever, but when it was done well, it was SPECTACULAR. Episodes like "Teela's Quest" and "The Problem With Power" are some of the best episodes of any cartoon ever made, and it's a shame that such brilliance never made its way to the big screen. If it had, we probably would've seen sequels and playing with He-Man figures till, what, 92, 93? :-) Actually, a little bit of obscure movie history -- MOTU did have a sequel go into pre-production, but it didn't take long for it to turn into a totally different project. "Cyborg". Yup, the Jean-Claude Van-Damme movie. If you see it on TV, it should have the full title "Masters of the Universe II -- The Cyborg".

Did you notice that after the closing credits, there's a short scene of bubbling red water out of which Skeletor jumps and says "I'll be back!"? I remember the line for this movie stretching all the way around the block when I went to see it. Gotta agree that He-Man coming to Earth was a totally bad idea, but compare this to other cartoon/comic-book based movies and it stands out as one of the best (well, better) ones.

Well, its very easy to take shots at works after the fact. Let me tell you - that was an amazing experience. I had control over everthing except casting of Dolph, he came with the package, and the script, which also came wiht the package. But I did my best to make it all work. I think we did a pretty good job -- you have no idea what its like to make movie based on a toyline, wherein the toy company has final say on every aspect of the characters, what they say and what they do. But the picture LOOKS great (Bill Stout on costumes, production design), the actors all went on to future suceess, and for many it was their first movie, and ultimatly, not that this is an excuse, but remember -- this was a movie for kids who knew the He-Man stories from the cartoons. So we tried to aim it older without losing the kids. Finally, for all the fans that wanted Orco and Battle Cat and every other character - give me a break - we were not making cartoon that could contain 50 main characters, and we had to FOCUS on a human story of some kind. Lastly, we had a small budget (by Hollywood standards at the time) and THAT is why they came to Earth kids. I watched the movie again recently and guess what - its prety damn good and frankly, I don't think it belongs here on your list of "bad movies" but hey - those that can, DO, and those that can't, write stupid criticisms with "witty" cutdowns.

Dolph and Frank did a great job.Teela is sexy but that little elf guy really got on my nerves(Bily Barty is not funny).I am glad that they made it live action and not just an animated 90 minute toy advertisemnt.

Of course I know Masters of the Universe is a very very bad movie. But I actually enjoyed it a lot. I still watch it every now and then. I thought Meg Foster was brilliant as Evil-Lyn, and it would have been really cool if they would have made a sequel with her as the main villain, since she survives in this one. Without her this movie probably would have sucked, but those eyes....I also think it's really funny to see Courtney Cox in this one, and I wonder how she feels about this movie now that she became such a big star. I think it captured the essence of the original cartoons pretty well. Only Teela really didn't work, and they should have given Chelsea Field a costume that was more like the costume from the cartoon. With the white and the gold. Overall I think it was a really nice movie.

Even though I was a kid at the time I saw this movie, I still wondered "Where in the @#%* was Orko?" I can understand no Prince Adam or King Randor. What I can't understand is Teela's outfit. Evil Lyn can have a sexy outfit, but Teela gets a reject soldier outfit? Oh, also, I find the "1987 which was a long time ago and where special effects weren't so special." That brings so many hilarious connotations, I don't know where to begin. Has anyone here seen Star Wars? You know circa 1978? Back, when people wrote on cave walls, and the only way to find food was to go out and spear it down?

I used to rent Masters of the Universe growing up; along with Ghostbusters 1,2, Howard the Duck, and The Goonies. I caught the movie on cable a couple days ago and was amazed of how sucky this movie really is. Dolph Lundgren can't act worth s**t and Frank Langella is one of the worst villans of all time. In fact you can't even recgonize him in that makeup. Meg Foster sucks as usual, staring into the camera with her slut eyes. The special effects are pretty good and James Tolkan who plays the cop is pretty funny. Chelsea Field as Teela comes off with the worst performance in the movie. What the hell was Courtney Cox doing in this movie. Bill Barty who plays the dwarf is annoying as s**t. The Cosmic key (WHAT THE HELL) how much do want Gary Goddard 30 million, how but 40, what the hell were you thinking. To sum it all up I used to love this movie growing up, but unlike Howard the Duck this movie just plain sucks.

I remember going to theaters to see this flick. Dolph Lundgren, in my opinion, was the absolute best choice to play He-man. I was peeved Orco and Battlecat were not in the movie. But overall, Masters of the Universe is one of the best cheesy nation-wide released fantasy movies ever. And speaking of cheesy, keep an eye out for the upcoming AD&D movie, starring Jeremy Irons, and Marlon Wayans.

Seems to me people are simply too embarassed to point out the film's good points and feel they HAVE to criticise it - it's based on toys we liked as kids, right? We can't say we like it! - but if you look at it as a movie, it's exciting, funny, well performed, full of action, great to look at, and with solid characters and an excellent performance from Langella as Skeletor. It's a good movie.